


grapes

by thefudge



Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Jekyll and Hyde, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unresolved Sexual Tension, alter ego, winter soldier comes out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 15:12:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18034082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: He is a blank slate, a hollow mountain, a coal mine without a canary. No humor, no gentle smile, no quiet gratitude. (request)





	grapes

**Author's Note:**

> This little oneshot (or maybe two-parter) is the result of a request I got on tumblr that goes like this: "Bucky Barnes can hide his feelings for princess Shuri—but the soldier doesn’t. Can you write something about the winter soldier being clingy and possessive and jealous of Bucky?"  
> Sooo, I did my best lol. Because it's me, the story is possibly weirder and more dramatic than necessary, but oh well! Hope yall enjoy!
> 
> (making this a two-parter because i might want to add to it, *wink*)

“You must suffer me to go my own dark way.” 

 Robert Louis Stevenson,  _The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_

 

***

 

The Soldier is a kind of blindness. Like sticking your fingers in your eyes, like plunging into the blancmange and tearing at the viscous coating of nerves that carries you towards the light. When you do that, it’s not just darkness that overwhelms you, but self-disgust. You are touching a membrane of yourself, a bit of self-slime. What the hell even _are_ you?

_What are you?_

He presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to shove the imagery away, but the film reel is warm under his skin.

And in this film, there is one target. There’s only ever just one target. They’ve programmed him in this monosyllabic way. He takes things one at a time.

The target has just abandoned her sandals by the door. They still smell of the traffic outside. They also give off strange, mysterious notes of lime and dark wood. His nose sees better than his eyes. They trained him like that too.

He would like to eat the sandals, swallow them like strips of dry meat. Often times after a kill, he deliberately destroyed every piece of evidence with his hands and mouth, because he wanted to feel total devastation. If the target had food in their fridge, he would eat it. If there was wine in the cellars, he would drink it. He remembers, as if through a haze, walking through a mansion, eating a dead man’s grapes.

The target is talking on the phone, gesticulating wildly. She smells freshly cut from some tree. From time to time she turns to the Soldier in a sympathetic “can-you-believe-it” look as she toys with the hem of her shirt. She even promises that, “I’m just going to change and then we’ll grab lunch”.

The Soldier stares at the blue varnish on her nails. Could he eat that too, he wonders?

 

 

Shuri moves distractedly from the living area into the bedroom. Ramonda won’t stop chastising her about the interview she gave to that _one_ pop culture magazine about her favorite music and gadgets - as if she had murdered Baba herself - and she is frankly _tired_ of this parental herding, she gets it enough from her brother, and isn’t she by all means an adult now, can’t they let her live her _best_ life?

She is in the process of saying all of this when she feels a shadowed weight behind her.

She frowns and smiles. “Ah. James, you don’t need to follow me in here, I’m pretty sure there aren’t any gunmen hiding under the bed –”

The Soldier reaches forward swiftly and grabs the smartphone from her ear.  

He holds it in his metal hand for a moment, contemplating crushing it, but eventually, some other instinct tells him to simply dispose of it. 

He does. He launches it freely at the open window behind her.

“ _Bucky_! What in Bast's name-!”

She turns to face him, annoyance writ large into her delicate features - annoyance without sting, annoyance that falters into confusion, confusion which quickly turns into alarm when she notices the wasteland, the white-blue crater of his eyes. A total blindness.

He is a blank slate, a hollow mountain, a coal mine without a canary. No humor, no gentle smile, no quiet gratitude.

Shuri swallows quickly. Her feet are molten lead. She is rooted to the spot. She inhales the warm air of her own breath.

“It’s all right, Sergeant Barnes. Tell me, what – what triggered you? Can you remember?”

She switches to her lab-brat voice. A steady nurse, a benevolent physician. She must sound older, wiser. Not afraid.

The Soldier advances on her and she finds she is not rooted to the spot after all. She is liquefied.

Her legs hit the back of the bed.

Shuri knows – she _knows_ – he won’t kill her. She has spent so many hours untangling his trauma, drawing exits and entrances, making it easier for him to navigate this violent terrain that it feels as if his psychic country were her own.

Yes, she _had_ hoped he was past the point of triggering, but she never truly excluded the possibility. No healing works so uniformly. The difference now, she hopes, is that the Soldier is not lethal, not indiscriminately.

She falls on the bed. She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t make a sound.

She simply looks up at him, waiting and trusting that he will not need external pressure. They have worked _through_ this.

And well – she does keep a blaster under her pillow.

But it will not come to that. It must never come to that.

“Tell me what happened, Sergeant,” she repeats, raising herself on her elbows. "Tell me what hurts.”

 

 

The Soldier regards her passively. They are alone in this hotel suite, but not in the entire hotel. Whatever happens here, it will have witnesses later. Yet, despite the usual precautions, he’d like to hear her scream.

Not the usual screams of terror. No - something more complex, more melodic, like a violin in distress.

“Nothing hurts,” he replies evenly.  

She licks her lips. “But something must have bothered you.”

The Soldier considers her words. Bothered? No, right now he is almost content. She is trapped in his net and there is nowhere else for her to go.

But before? Outside this hotel room?

She could go wherever she pleased. And she was gallivanting with the Other. The weak man, the man who bows his head, the man who does not use his arm.

The Lucky One.

She always showers affection on the lucky one, squeezes his arm when he is unsure, wraps him in an innocent hug to say hello, tells him ridiculous things, trying to make him laugh. Treats him like a delightful child who is taking his first steps. Meanwhile, the Soldier watches and feels misjudged, feels ill-treated, _deprived_.

So perhaps – perhaps she is not _entirely_ wrong that there is a vestigial bother, an unhappiness of hierarchy in him. He wants to be on the surface of things. He wants to enjoy _everything_ the surface has to offer.

Bucky Barnes is not worthy of the surface.

“James,” she begins, haltingly. “Tell me how I can help.”

The Soldier tilts his head. “Don’t say his name.”

 

 

Shuri has always been precocious. It’s often driven her parents mad with worry.

She does not need more than the one sentence. It all falls into place quickly.

“ _Oh_. All right... I won’t.”

The Soldier is a different man and he wants to be treated like one.

He takes another step forward. His pant leg brushes against her calf.

“What else?” she asks, raising her chin slightly. She does not want to lose ground now.

The Soldier steps between her legs and snags his foot against her ankle, making her slide towards him, like a passenger on a sinking ship. It’s a practiced move, one he has used on many pliant bodies. She parts her legs instinctively.

He leans down so that his metal fingers graze her bare knee. The touch is clinical, like checking for bone. He taps her kneecap. His thumb traces down the jagged lightning of a scar. Was that always there? Who put it there?

“What else?” he echoes. “It should be obvious. Don’t look at him. Don’t smile at him. Don’t hold his hand. Don’t touch him.”

Shuri’s eyes widen as he lists the interdictions. She struggles to bridge the gap. How do you look without looking, how do you touch without touching? Must she split herself too, one version of herself off-limits, another sprawled on this bed, immobile? Isn’t she already so many people at once? Hasn’t Bucky Barnes taught her this?

But this feels brand new. It feels dangerous to play with the Soldier like this when it can’t and _shouldn’t_ last.

Her family would be outraged. Bucky is her project, her patient. He tags along, playing the guardian with a chip on his shoulder. He is still healing. He cannot be this other man to her.

But oh – wouldn’t it be _interesting_ to explore the duality further? For purely scientific reasons.

She stares into those galvanized blue eyes.

He speaks again and she does not understand the words, but she catches the meaning all the same.

“Nikagda ne davay yemu nichevo.” 

Shuri nods, making a promise she can’t keep. Her tongue is clumsy in her mouth.

Bucky rubs the scarring of her knee with his metal thumb, a hypnotic motion. He could break her and put her back together, just like she did to him.

“Take off your clothes,” he says, still staring at the patch of raised skin. 

Shuri inhales sharply. The air is filled with golden afternoon dust.

He raises his head and there is almost something wry in the shape of his mouth.

“You said you wanted to change and then grab lunch,” he echoes eerily.

Shuri exhales.

“I…yes. That was the plan.”

He stands back, dropping her knee against the mattress. “Well?”

Shuri clears her throat. She should ask – in fact, _demand_ – for privacy. She should tell him to turn around, set boundaries in place. Show him she really isn’t afraid. But she feels heady with some future premonition, a feeling that she can’t force into action. She wants to see what he will do.

This is an experiment, of sorts. Curiosity guides her. 

So she begins to unbutton her already damp shirt with eager, shaking fingers.

She lets the garment fall to the wayside.

The Soldier watches in blindness. He _is_ blindness. His eyes rove and wander, his etherized gaze making her shiver with winter cold.

He would like to eat her with his mouth and hands, eat her like all the other targets, eat her like grapes in a dead man’s house.

In his mind’s eye, he already has.

He turns away abruptly, walking back into the living room.

Shuri falls down on the bed with a muted gasp.  

 

 

A few minutes later, she hears him call her name shyly.

“Shuri? Are you all right?”

She is still lying on the bed. For a moment, she hates him for becoming familiar again. 


End file.
